It's quite a rare thing for mew to preach in all three services in a day, and probably even rarer to preach the same sermon in all three churches.
The readings were Hebrews 5, 5-10 and John 12, 20-33
There were a lot of ad libs, for example about PSA. The bit of the shack I read out was from page 31 where Mack and Missy are talking about whether God is mean to send Jesus to the cross
Why is Jesus like the Internet?
One reason is my spell checker won’t let me write either of those two words without a capital letter!
This week in Stebbing the broadband Internet connection wasn’t working.
As a result I found myself getting quite stressed, and realised just how much I rely on these things for communication, to stay connected to lots of networks and to receive and send lots of information. I felt cut off, and it made me think about being cut off from God.
Last week after church at Little Saling, young Oscar Roe asked me “What is salvation?” I gave him an answer, but I’m not sure it was an adequate one. This week, I might have answered using the broadband cut off metaphor.
Without Christ, we are cut off from God, we cannot get through to him and we cannot come into his presence, but Christ provides for us a means of communication with God, and he is also the provider to us of everything God wants to give us. Just as our computers give and receive information from other computers via the Internet, Christ the means both of our communication with God, and his communication – of his love, his guidance, his power and his comfort – with us. When our Internet connection goes down, we may feel cut off, but that state of isolation is nothing compared to the condition of being cut off from God.
In this sense then, Jesus is, as the writer to the Hebrews says, the source of our salvation, as well as being the means. He is how we receive God’s gift of eternal life – through faith in him, and he is the reason we can receive it, because of his death upon the cross. Hebrews tells us that Jesus’ priesthood was not a human institution but a divine appointment. It was God’s purpose, and Jesus’ choice, to take the path he walked, the path to the cross.
So then, another way Jesus is like the Internet is that you don’t need to know how it works to benefit from it.
What I mean by that is, I don’t understand computers beyond a limited amount of information like how to switch them on and off, or how to … er, actually that’s about it. Yet I can still use one and benefit from the communication tools it affords me (when it is working of course!)
In the same way, there are whole libraries full of books on the theology of the cross. Theologians from all shades of the church have spent the last 2 millennia puzzling over the mechanics of the cross, how it is that one man’s death at one point in history can have such far-reaching and fantastic consequences. There are lots of different theories of the atonement, but they remain theories. I am not one of those people who assess a Christian’s orthodoxy on the basis of which theory of the atonement they subscribe to. But there is one issue surrounding this that has been debated recently, and which our readings today offer interesting insights on.
Hebrews speaks of Christ’s obedience, and John’s gospel portrays Jesus predicting his own heath, and speaking of its consequences. John’s Jesus is a man who knows what he has to do, yet still chooses to do it in the face of extreme distress. Some people say they do not like the idea of God forcing his Son to die, railroading him into making a sacrifice. This, it is said by some, is inconsistent with the idea of a God of love and grace, which the New Testament tells of. This approach regards the idea of God sacrificing his son as barbaric, just as we would regard the story of Abraham and Isaac as barbaric, if God had not intervened to stop the patriarch from killing his own son.
However, it is clear that Jesus knew his own mind – he was daunted by the prospect, but he trusted God. He was aware of the stakes, but he chose to go to the cross; he was not railroaded and could have taken another route; yet he knew the Father’s will. Not that it was a vindictive death sentence laid down by a vindictive God, but that when he was lifted up form the world, he would draw all people to himself. Lifted up in John is a reference to the cross, the throne of the King.
To reinforce this point I would like to read a paragraph from the Shack (p31)
So, if you like, to answer Oscar’s question more articulately, salvation is the fact that Jesus chose willingly to die for us. He knew his sacrifice would not be in vain, and he became obedient to his father in choosing to die. His death conquered death for us; that is salvation, that even though we die yet shall we live, because that’s what he did – but we must save the last bit for Easter.
So to conclude, Oscar, salvation is being saved from death, being brought into God’s family, God’s kingdom. It is something Jesus has done for us upon the cross, but we are not passive it this. Just as Jesus chose to die – his Father did not compel him, but he chose to die, we have to choose to follow him, to trust him and to believe in his promises.
When we have done that, if it’s not too trivial a comparison, Jesus is our Internet connection to God. Through him we receive messages, reassurances, encouragement, rebukes, healing and forgiveness. Through him we send to God our worship, our praises, our prayers, our confessions, our frustrations and our distress. In doing this we draw closer to Christ, closer, by the power of the Spirit in us, to each other, and closer to our Father God.
Sunday 29 March 2009
Monday 23 March 2009
Little Saling mothering Sunday 09
Readings Psalm 34, 11-20 and John 3, 14-21
Today as we celebrate mothering Sunday I am going to explore our two readings with regard to how God is like a mother, and how his church is a family for believers. These readings might not necessarily have jumped out at you as the obvious ones for the festival we celebrate today but I hope that by bearing with me you will see how it all fits together. I want to begin by saying that when reflecting upon human motherhood and parenting I am pretty much assuming that we have had a good experience in that regard. If this for you is not the case and so this celebration of mothers is a difficult one for you then I hope that you can draw comfort from the pattern of our Lord, if not from your own mother. Please, if you are struggling with this issue, take the opportunity to speak with me after the service and we can arrange to meet up and talk things through prayerfully.
The Gospel reading, John 3.14-21 is of course one of the most famous passages in the Bible. At first glance it says nothing to us about mothers, being the outcome of a meeting of two men, Nicodemus and Christ. However, there are some connections, which I will unpack in a moment, but first let us dwell a moment on verse 17; everyone is familiar – some perhaps overly familiar – with John 3, verse 16, perhaps one of the most famous verses in the Bible, through which many people have come to faith. But its neighbour verse 17 is always in its shadow and deserves an outing – “For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him”. If verse 16 is an invitation to find hope in Christ, verse 17 gives us a pattern of how to behave when, living in that hope, in faith in Christ, we relate to the wider world. God’s purpose is driven by love for the world. It may not always feel like that or appear like that, but as Christians we are called to bring the salvation that God offers to the attention of the world, rather than to condemn it.
John 3 picks up the thought of Numbers 21, where Moses commanded that a snake be lifted up so that those who looked to it could be delivered from the bite of poisonous snakes. The New Testament Christian significance of this image is of course the concept of looking in faith to the cross of Christ, to be delivered and saved from death. Those who look to the crucified saviour can be delivered from sin if they believe in the offer God has made. Belief/faith/trust is the New Testament equivalent of covenant responsibility in the Hebrew Bible. There is a delicate balance to be maintained here. God's offer of salvation in Christ, like his entry into covenant with Israel, depends on God's free choice as creator dealing with creation. The biblical view is that God both demands but also enables our response to him.
In this way God is very like a human mother, who in relation to her children both enables (by her love and care for them) and demands (by her parental influence and discipline) their response to her. To me Psalm 34, while it does not specifically refer to God as a mother, contains many things that we would naturally associate with a motherly role – protection, care, healing, watching out for us. All of these are ways in which our mothers (and our God) love us and provoke in us the response of love and trust.
Whilst we have to believe and trust, which God himself will enable but not compel, it is God's initial grace and not our response that enables the saving action. As St John’s first epistle puts it, we love because he first loved us. Christian theology is full of paradoxes! God offers us salvation, will enable us to enter into it but never compel us to do so. If we decline God's offer, however, we place ourselves in a position where we will be judged for failure to respond to God. This is as much a call to be moral in our dealings with our neighbour as to honour God.
It may seem paradoxical but it still seems to me to be a good pattern of parenting, to inspire mothers and fathers today. For example, I am very aware of the pressure my children are under as vicarage kids – at the age they are now, they have to go to church, and have no choice. However, if one of them expresses doubts or disbelief it is our practice to allow space for that, and to allow for disagreement with our approach to faith. We do not compel our children to follow Christ just because we do so “professionally”, but we provide for them a means by which to follow him as and when they wish to.
And the church, which for me, with respect to the recipients of posies on Mothering Sunday through the ages, is the focus of today’s celebration, has a key role in this. The church provides the context not only for us to freely enter into relationship with God, into salvation, and also the context in which we as parents or even grandparents pass on without compulsion the faith we have received to the next generations of our families. On mothering Sunday it is right to celebrate and pray for mothers, but we ought also to be praying for and celebrating the family of the church, the household of faith.
Using some material by Rev'd Dr Jonathan Knight taken from www.rootsontheweb.com
Today as we celebrate mothering Sunday I am going to explore our two readings with regard to how God is like a mother, and how his church is a family for believers. These readings might not necessarily have jumped out at you as the obvious ones for the festival we celebrate today but I hope that by bearing with me you will see how it all fits together. I want to begin by saying that when reflecting upon human motherhood and parenting I am pretty much assuming that we have had a good experience in that regard. If this for you is not the case and so this celebration of mothers is a difficult one for you then I hope that you can draw comfort from the pattern of our Lord, if not from your own mother. Please, if you are struggling with this issue, take the opportunity to speak with me after the service and we can arrange to meet up and talk things through prayerfully.
The Gospel reading, John 3.14-21 is of course one of the most famous passages in the Bible. At first glance it says nothing to us about mothers, being the outcome of a meeting of two men, Nicodemus and Christ. However, there are some connections, which I will unpack in a moment, but first let us dwell a moment on verse 17; everyone is familiar – some perhaps overly familiar – with John 3, verse 16, perhaps one of the most famous verses in the Bible, through which many people have come to faith. But its neighbour verse 17 is always in its shadow and deserves an outing – “For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him”. If verse 16 is an invitation to find hope in Christ, verse 17 gives us a pattern of how to behave when, living in that hope, in faith in Christ, we relate to the wider world. God’s purpose is driven by love for the world. It may not always feel like that or appear like that, but as Christians we are called to bring the salvation that God offers to the attention of the world, rather than to condemn it.
John 3 picks up the thought of Numbers 21, where Moses commanded that a snake be lifted up so that those who looked to it could be delivered from the bite of poisonous snakes. The New Testament Christian significance of this image is of course the concept of looking in faith to the cross of Christ, to be delivered and saved from death. Those who look to the crucified saviour can be delivered from sin if they believe in the offer God has made. Belief/faith/trust is the New Testament equivalent of covenant responsibility in the Hebrew Bible. There is a delicate balance to be maintained here. God's offer of salvation in Christ, like his entry into covenant with Israel, depends on God's free choice as creator dealing with creation. The biblical view is that God both demands but also enables our response to him.
In this way God is very like a human mother, who in relation to her children both enables (by her love and care for them) and demands (by her parental influence and discipline) their response to her. To me Psalm 34, while it does not specifically refer to God as a mother, contains many things that we would naturally associate with a motherly role – protection, care, healing, watching out for us. All of these are ways in which our mothers (and our God) love us and provoke in us the response of love and trust.
Whilst we have to believe and trust, which God himself will enable but not compel, it is God's initial grace and not our response that enables the saving action. As St John’s first epistle puts it, we love because he first loved us. Christian theology is full of paradoxes! God offers us salvation, will enable us to enter into it but never compel us to do so. If we decline God's offer, however, we place ourselves in a position where we will be judged for failure to respond to God. This is as much a call to be moral in our dealings with our neighbour as to honour God.
It may seem paradoxical but it still seems to me to be a good pattern of parenting, to inspire mothers and fathers today. For example, I am very aware of the pressure my children are under as vicarage kids – at the age they are now, they have to go to church, and have no choice. However, if one of them expresses doubts or disbelief it is our practice to allow space for that, and to allow for disagreement with our approach to faith. We do not compel our children to follow Christ just because we do so “professionally”, but we provide for them a means by which to follow him as and when they wish to.
And the church, which for me, with respect to the recipients of posies on Mothering Sunday through the ages, is the focus of today’s celebration, has a key role in this. The church provides the context not only for us to freely enter into relationship with God, into salvation, and also the context in which we as parents or even grandparents pass on without compulsion the faith we have received to the next generations of our families. On mothering Sunday it is right to celebrate and pray for mothers, but we ought also to be praying for and celebrating the family of the church, the household of faith.
Using some material by Rev'd Dr Jonathan Knight taken from www.rootsontheweb.com
Sunday 15 March 2009
Great Saling 15 March 09
The readings were 1 Cor 1, 18-25 and John 2, 13-22.
I have been thinking a little about fame this week, and about how our society behaves towards those who are in the public eye. This has mostly been because of the media coverage in recent weeks of the reality TV star Jade Goody, who is dying of cancer, and who was baptised into the church of England this week.
Just a couple of months ago many people who never watch reality TV had never heard of Jade, but now even the Prime Minister is sending her his condolences, and even the broadsheet newspapers are giving her headlines, whereas before she was a staple for the tabloids. Jade is one of those people who is famous for being famous (or infamous); it was clear from the start that her aim was to get as much media attention (and so also as much money) as she could, by profiting from Britain’s current fashion for reality TV programmes like Big Brother. Jade wanted fame and fortune and she got it; now she (or rather her agent) is even making money from coverage of her terminal illness (although she has at least decided to use this money to set up a trust fund to provide for her sons after her death.)
Our society encourages the promotion of the self, over and above ideology, theology or ethics. Famous people are to be looked up to just because they are famous not because they have even said or done anything worthwhile – It might just be because of what they wear, or who they are married to. The sad thing is that the public lap it up as well. They truly believe the old adage that anyone can be famous for 15 minutes, even if it is by humiliating themselves on national TV.
It’s sad mainly because it is the exact opposite of the approach that Jesus took, and which Paul advocates in his letter to the Corinthians. Jesus might have made a bit of a spectacle of himself in casting out the moneychangers and merchants from the Temple, but he did not do it as an act of self-promotion, but because zeal for his Father’s house had consumed him. In this episode we see Jesus' zeal for the law. The Christian meaning of the passage in John 2 is that, in Jesus, God's will has been perfectly disclosed and that he is the man who both embodies the kingdom and challenges on its behalf. Indeed, while he might arguably be called the most well known figure in human history, Jesus never did anything to make himself famous; he just wanted to point people to God.
And in the early church, the apostles undertook a similar task. They were often misunderstood or misinterpreted. For example, the preaching of the cross did not always commend itself to outsiders. According to Deuteronomy 21.23, those whose bodies were exhibited on a gibbet were regarded as cursed by God; while Romans saw crucifixion as a worthless person's death. Paul's rhetoric turns the situation on its head: what the world regarded as folly was in fact the supreme demonstration of divine wisdom. Here we have the tension of Christian living in a nutshell. The Christian Messiah was rejected by the priestly authorities as a pretender and crucified by the Romans as a troublemaker. It follows that those who follow Jesus follow a path of suffering as well as service, in the footsteps of their Lord. We need to learn to look beyond the obvious to see the true meaning of Christianity in action. But we should not confuse being a fool for Christ's sake with merely being a fool.
For now it seems the world is upside down again, because foolish and adolescent behaviour by “celebrities” is regarded by the media as a wise thing to report on, because we have an appetite for knowledge of Wayne Rooney’s brother in law’s court appearances, or Jade Goody’s husband’s conviction. Why is this? According to the BBC it is partly due to the death of the Fleet street investigative reporter and the rise of the PR agencies who make money out of telling us what is or isn’t news. I prefer to see this as an unfortunate turn in society towards the self and away from community. In matters of faith therefore we are called to put others first, to build a community that points other s to Christ.
John places the 'Cleansing of the Temple' at the beginning of Jesus' ministry whereas the Synoptic Gospels locate it at the end, during Jesus' last days in Jerusalem. Additionally John changes tack half way through, referring the Temple in Jerusalem to the temple of his own body under the assertion that Jesus would be raised three days after death.
John uses a story about Jesus to make a point: that Jesus predicted his own death and resurrection from the beginning of his ministry. Both of these points make sure the reader understands God’s plan was always there; Christ’s redemptive work was not a self-centred ploy to gain attention, but a sacrificial self-giving, that gave eternal life to those who follow him. Now that really is good news!
Using some material by Rev'd Dr Jonathan Knight
taken from www.rootsontheweb.com and is copyright © Roots for Churches Ltd 2008.
I have been thinking a little about fame this week, and about how our society behaves towards those who are in the public eye. This has mostly been because of the media coverage in recent weeks of the reality TV star Jade Goody, who is dying of cancer, and who was baptised into the church of England this week.
Just a couple of months ago many people who never watch reality TV had never heard of Jade, but now even the Prime Minister is sending her his condolences, and even the broadsheet newspapers are giving her headlines, whereas before she was a staple for the tabloids. Jade is one of those people who is famous for being famous (or infamous); it was clear from the start that her aim was to get as much media attention (and so also as much money) as she could, by profiting from Britain’s current fashion for reality TV programmes like Big Brother. Jade wanted fame and fortune and she got it; now she (or rather her agent) is even making money from coverage of her terminal illness (although she has at least decided to use this money to set up a trust fund to provide for her sons after her death.)
Our society encourages the promotion of the self, over and above ideology, theology or ethics. Famous people are to be looked up to just because they are famous not because they have even said or done anything worthwhile – It might just be because of what they wear, or who they are married to. The sad thing is that the public lap it up as well. They truly believe the old adage that anyone can be famous for 15 minutes, even if it is by humiliating themselves on national TV.
It’s sad mainly because it is the exact opposite of the approach that Jesus took, and which Paul advocates in his letter to the Corinthians. Jesus might have made a bit of a spectacle of himself in casting out the moneychangers and merchants from the Temple, but he did not do it as an act of self-promotion, but because zeal for his Father’s house had consumed him. In this episode we see Jesus' zeal for the law. The Christian meaning of the passage in John 2 is that, in Jesus, God's will has been perfectly disclosed and that he is the man who both embodies the kingdom and challenges on its behalf. Indeed, while he might arguably be called the most well known figure in human history, Jesus never did anything to make himself famous; he just wanted to point people to God.
And in the early church, the apostles undertook a similar task. They were often misunderstood or misinterpreted. For example, the preaching of the cross did not always commend itself to outsiders. According to Deuteronomy 21.23, those whose bodies were exhibited on a gibbet were regarded as cursed by God; while Romans saw crucifixion as a worthless person's death. Paul's rhetoric turns the situation on its head: what the world regarded as folly was in fact the supreme demonstration of divine wisdom. Here we have the tension of Christian living in a nutshell. The Christian Messiah was rejected by the priestly authorities as a pretender and crucified by the Romans as a troublemaker. It follows that those who follow Jesus follow a path of suffering as well as service, in the footsteps of their Lord. We need to learn to look beyond the obvious to see the true meaning of Christianity in action. But we should not confuse being a fool for Christ's sake with merely being a fool.
For now it seems the world is upside down again, because foolish and adolescent behaviour by “celebrities” is regarded by the media as a wise thing to report on, because we have an appetite for knowledge of Wayne Rooney’s brother in law’s court appearances, or Jade Goody’s husband’s conviction. Why is this? According to the BBC it is partly due to the death of the Fleet street investigative reporter and the rise of the PR agencies who make money out of telling us what is or isn’t news. I prefer to see this as an unfortunate turn in society towards the self and away from community. In matters of faith therefore we are called to put others first, to build a community that points other s to Christ.
John places the 'Cleansing of the Temple' at the beginning of Jesus' ministry whereas the Synoptic Gospels locate it at the end, during Jesus' last days in Jerusalem. Additionally John changes tack half way through, referring the Temple in Jerusalem to the temple of his own body under the assertion that Jesus would be raised three days after death.
John uses a story about Jesus to make a point: that Jesus predicted his own death and resurrection from the beginning of his ministry. Both of these points make sure the reader understands God’s plan was always there; Christ’s redemptive work was not a self-centred ploy to gain attention, but a sacrificial self-giving, that gave eternal life to those who follow him. Now that really is good news!
Using some material by Rev'd Dr Jonathan Knight
taken from www.rootsontheweb.com and is copyright © Roots for Churches Ltd 2008.
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